Friday, October 06, 2006

Women and Education:

Acceding women and men equal access to education in light of the Fourteenth Amendment’s pledge of equal protection.Although taken for granted by many, co-sex educational institutions for higher learning are really just recent occurrences. And For the most part, in the colleges and universities, particularly elite ones, taught either men or women. So the reasons for this separation date back to early American history, when a woman’s place was seen as “in the home.” And In addition, education was seen, though ridiculously, as having detrimental effects on the woman.And the some of these ludicrous, yet back then “scientific” beliefs, included that women’s brains were smaller than men’s were therefore, making them “less capable of academic learning.” And It was also said that if women utilized their brains at the time of their adolescent years, then their reproductive organs would not develop correctly causing possible sterility.The motherhood has always been seen as a strong link for women to their personal identities. However, the greatest oppression would be to threaten its existence.Take an example, in 1971 after a congressional hearing reported that in Virginia 21,000 women and no men were turned down for admission to state schools. The court usually applies this test with gender-based classifications and those involving illegitimate children. And it was not until recent decades that the Court finally let up with the concept that the equal protection clause was the “last resort of constitutional arguments”, as stated by Justice Holmes in 1927 (Buck v Bell). Though the intermediate scrutiny test is based on a substantive evaluation reviewing the governmental policy’s wisdom and intentions. And from as early as 1955 when Adlai Stevenson; addressed the Smith College graduating class and urged them not to define themselves by “any profession and to participate in politics through the role of wife and mother. Whether an institution did not comply with the law, the government might delay awards of money and the revoke current awards or debar institutions from eligibility for future awards. As to the emergence of the Women’s Liberation groups in 1968 as a “spin-off” of the male- run student movement. So VMI was founded in 1839 with the mission of producing “citizen-soldiers. So a situation came as women have had to prove that they are equals of men.